The Weeping Buoy

The salt wind cut through our jackets as we stumbled along the crumbling harbor wall, the glow of our shared joint a tiny orange ember in the gloom. It was just me, Danny, and old Mike, all of us seventeen and invincible, or at least numb enough to think so. We’d tried the usual spots—the canal, the muddy banks of the river—but the fish weren’t biting. Mike, who’d been here a hundred times, spat and said, ‘Let’s try the old pier. The one past the shipwreck.’ We all knew the one: a long, skeletal finger of wood jutting into the sea, its end lost in mist, and the rusted remains of a freighter that had sunk decades ago looming nearby like a rotten tooth.

We stumbled onto the pier, our boots thudding on the warped planks. It was late, near midnight, and the fog had rolled in, muffling the world. We took our spot halfway down, baiting hooks with cold, slimy mackerel, our laughter echoing in the damp air. I was busy fumbling with a knot when I glanced up—and there, at the very end of the pier, sat a boy. He was about our age, thin, with a threadbare hoodie pulled tight. He had a single rod propped on a makeshift stand, and he was just sitting there, staring at the water, absolutely still. I figured he was just another kid looking for a quiet spot. But then I saw them: a man and a woman, standing a few feet behind him. They weren’t fishermen. They wore dark, soaked clothes that clung to them like they’d just come out of the sea. They didn’t move, just stood there, leaning in, their mouths close to his ears, whispering. The boy’s shoulders were hunched, his hands trembling as he clutched the rod.

I felt a knot in my stomach. Something was off. I told the lads, ‘I’m moving up there, better luck.’ Danny grunted, Mike shrugged. I grabbed my tackle and started walking. The pier creaked under my weight. As I got closer, the man suddenly broke away and walked straight past me, his face a blur, his lips moving fast, spitting out words I couldn’t catch—just a rapid, wet mumble. He passed so close I felt a cold draft, like stepping into a fridge. I turned to watch him, and he disappeared into the fog, still muttering, his voice fading like a radio signal. I looked back at the boy. He was staring at me now, his eyes wide and glassy. The woman was gone, too. I said, ‘You alright, mate?’ but he just shook his head, a tiny, quick motion, and turned back to his line. I set up a few yards away, trying to shake the unease.

For a while, it was quiet except for the water slapping against the wooden pillars. Then I heard it: a low, rhythmic sound, like crying, but wet, like it was coming from underwater. It seemed to come from the end of the pier, beyond the boy, where the fog was thickest. The boy’s rod suddenly bent, and he lurched forward, his feet slipping. I dropped my rod and ran. He was straining, his face red, his hands white-knuckled. I grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him back. ‘Let it go, just let it go!’ I shouted. But he was fighting me, screaming, ‘No, they’re hungry, they’re always hungry!’ His rod snapped, and he fell back, sprawled on the wet wood. We both stared at the broken rod, then at the water. The crying sound stopped. The fog seemed to lift a little. I saw a shape emerge—a buoy, bobbing about twenty feet out, covered in barnacles and seaweed, with something tangled on it. I squinted: it looked like a bundle of wet hair, snagged on a chain.

The boy was breathing hard, his face pale. ‘I’ve seen them before,’ he whispered. ‘They come for the ones who fish alone. They want company.’ He stood up, shakily, and started packing his gear. ‘You should leave. All of you.’ He picked up his broken rod and walked past me, not looking back. I wanted to stop him, but my legs wouldn’t move. I just watched him disappear into the fog. When I turned to go back to Danny and Mike, I saw them standing a few feet away, their rods still in hand, but their faces were blank, pale. They didn’t say anything. They just pointed at the water. I followed their gaze: the buoy was closer now, almost beside the pier, and on the chain, I could see a hand—pale, bloated, fingers loosely curled—as if reaching up. And beneath the surface, just for a second, I saw two faces, the man and the woman, staring up at me with black, bottomless eyes.

We didn’t speak the whole way back to the car. We packed up in silence, and I drove, my hands shaking on the wheel. I tried to tell myself it was the weed, that it was just the fog playing tricks. But when I got home and dumped my tackle box on the kitchen table, I found something that made my blood run cold: a single, waterlogged photograph, stuck to the bottom of my bait tray. It was faded, but I could make out a boy—the same boy—sitting on this pier, smiling, holding up a fish. And behind him, standing at the edge of the pier, were two blurry figures, just outlines, too dark to make out. The back of the photo had a date from twenty years ago, and a name scrawled in faded pencil: ‘Tommy.’ We never went back to that pier. I don’t know what happened to the boy. But sometimes, at night, I hear that wet crying sound, like it’s coming from my own drainpipe, and I swear I see a hand curling around the edge of my window, reaching for me, hungry for company.